Jarule-2
A "ferocious dog"
(Photo: Alex Engwete)
This is my family pet, name of Jarule-2.
He's called Jarule-2 because there was a genuine Jarule before him who got stolen and probably ended up as stew in some cooking pot!
Traditionally, only Baluba men were reputed dog-eaters. Tribal culture no doubt. Which doesn't mean that there are no certifiable crazy cultural cravings. Like the traditional Tetela appetite for human flesh that was banned and repressed by Belgian colonial authorities... Strangely, some Tetela were arrested in the 1970s for having for dinner a Lokele health professional working in the Kasai-Oriental Province. These Tetela cannibals were caught because a dispute broke out when they couldn't agree on which clan had the traditional right to eat the head, allegedly the yummiest part of the human "meat"... And, still more strangely, as late as the early 2000s, armed bandits and rapists under warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba routinely barbecued pygmies, who, according to them, are a sub-human species populating the Ituri forest...
Well, as I just said, there are crazy traditional cultural features. But there are also some other aberrant and abhorrent cultural practices that just spring up nowadays out of nowhere. Eating pygmies by Jean-Pierre Bemba's rebels belongs to the latter category. Eating dogs and cats in Kinshasa too, for it's not like people are starving in the Congolese capital.
There are now restaurants that serve dog and cat delicacies in the Congolese capital. Well, I wouldn't care a bit about these dog-eaters if they kept to eating their own dogs and cats!
Jarule-2 had two close calls when he used to roam this neighborhood before returning home. The first time, a dog-eater attempted to kidnap Jarule-2 by grabbing him by his collar. But it was at the dog-eater's own peril: Jarule-2 nearly cut off his hand with his fangs! The second time, another dog-eater was so badly mauled by Jarule-2 that the family had to pay for the medical care of the thief who was threatening to sue the household for harboring a "ferocious dog"...
But ferocity seems to be the only survival weapon for dogs like Jarule-2, an endangered specimen in Kin where ferocious dog-eaters patrol streets in search of dogs and cats! So don't attempt to pet Jarule-2 when you see him in the streets--whether he's accompanied or not!
